Making the Most of Your Time

Uber works better when drivers are driving more and waiting less. This week we’re piloting two new features to make the Uber experience more productive (and less stressful!) for drivers and their passengers.

Paying drivers for waiting past 2 minutes.

When a driver arrives promptly, we think it’s only fair that they’re compensated for their time. So we’re testing something new: paying drivers for wait times that exceed 2 minutes.

While we encourage riders to only request a ride when they’re ready, we understand that sometimes they are running a little behind. In these cases drivers will be compensated for the extra minutes they need.

Shorter cancellation periods to help drivers

Whether it’s lost keys, a change of plans, or a driver further away than anticipated, we know there are times when you need to cancel a trip. But it can be a headache for drivers who are already on their way. Under our new pilot, we’re asking riders to cancel trips within two minutes once they’ve been matched with a driver.

Riders who cancel after the two minute grace period may incur a small fee depending on the city. Previously the cancellation window was five minutes, but we’ve seen that two minutes is usually sufficient time for riders to determine whether they need a car.

We’re experimenting with wait times and cancellations in Dallas, New Jersey, New York, and Phoenix. If they improve the experience for riders and drivers, we’ll look at rolling them out more broadly.

Our goal is to help riders and drivers connect quickly and easily so they can get on their way and we hope pilots like these give us the flexibility to test new ideas and improve the reliability of our platform.

Updated on June 5, 2017 to include changes to cancellations and wait times.